Free Republic

NY Activists: Join NOW NY State Dec. 4! Demand health care reform that includes full reproductive rights for ALL women! Join with the National Organization for Women New York State chapter, local activits and prominent reproductive rights advocates to say NO to any Stupak-Pitts-like amendemnts in the National Health Care Reform package. Full Reproductive Rights for Women....Nothing More, Nothing Less Location: Front of Senator Schumer's office 757 Third Avenue (at 48th Street) NYC Date: Dec. 4, 2009 Time: Noon until 2:00 pm

DC Activists: Mobilize on Nov. 23! From 12-1pm on Monday November 23, join NOW activists from the mid-Atlantic region as they campaign outside the Senate office buildings against the Stupak Amendment. Nearest metro station is Union Station. We'll be meeting at Constitution Avenue, on the block in front of Russell and the corner of Constitution and Delaware. View map

PA Activists: Protest Pitts Nov. 21! Join NOW President Terry O'Neill, Pennsylvania NOW President Joanne Tosti-Vasey and Lois Herr, candidate for Congress in a protest outside of the Chester County Courthouse in Pennsylvania. This is Joseph Pitts' district -- as in one of the authors of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Starts at 10:15 Saturday, Nov. 21 with press conference at 10:30 am. All events will take place on the courthouse steps (2 N High St, West Chester, PA 19380 -- View map) Coalition partners for this event include Pennsylvania NOW, National NOW and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image.... While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including...

More abortions are carried out in Britain than any other country in Europe, research has shown. It has overtaken France - which has a larger population - to become the abortion capital of the continent. The rising rate has been pushed up by abortions among teenage girls, which increased by nearly a third over the past decade. Half of all pregnancies among girls under 18 in Britain end in abortion. Anti-abortion campaigners said the figures were an indictment of the Government's teenage pregnancy strategy. The figures, collated by a European pressure group, showed that the 219,336 abortions carried out in...

“The Speaker is not happy with me” --Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) commenting on Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to his amendment that would prohibit taxpayer-funded abortion in healthcare reform. The healthcare bills working their way through Congress should be opposed, and for so many reasons. They would ration care, expand entitlements, make all Americans dependent on government-approved insurance plans and add to our already stifling national debt. The bill passed by the House is horrendous. Whatever emerges from the Senate and later from the congressional conference committee should be opposed full stop. That said, there is an interesting debate taking place among...

It seems the recent news that Rudy may use his pending Senate run for another shot at the GOP nomination has brought the Rudophiles back to FR in packs. In order to head-off the liberal treachery, I think we need to renew the "Stop Rudy" ping list. Does anyone know who had it, and can we start it back up again? I will run it or help run it if needed, thanks!

Speaker Nancy Pelosi prefers abortion language in the Senate healthcare legislation to the approach her chamber took with its bill. "I'm pleased with the language in the Senate bill," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said of the bill her counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), rolled out Wednesday. "I think it's pretty clear no federal funds would be used to pay for abortion." Reid left out the language drafted by abortion-rights opponent Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich... [snip] Abortion-rights supporters, including Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), have praised Reid’s approach. But anti-abortion groups have lambasted it, calling it "completely unacceptable." "Reid seeks to cover...

Senate Confirms David Hamilton, Obama's First Pro-Abortion Judicial Pick Washington, DC -- The Senate voted today 59-39 to confirm a pro-abortion federal judge President Barack Obama appointed to become a new appeals court justice. David Hamilton, of Indiana, is the first pro-abortion judge Obama selected, but he was held up for months because of his extreme views. Story, votes and action alert at http://www.lifenews.com/nat5689.htm

Did Obama lie in his joint address to Congress when he said "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions?" [VIDEO AT SITE] Last summer and earlier this fall Obama repeatedly claimed that those on our side who expressed concerns about many aspects of the health bills working their way through Congress were lying about certain provisions. One of those "lies" was the GOP claim that money from the government run plans would be used to fund abortions. When Joe Wilson shouted "YOU LIE" during Obama's speech to Congress, Joe wasn't just talking about illegal immigrants getting benefits under...

Posted by GOP Leader (John Boehner) Press Office on November 19th, 2009 Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.

Senate Majority Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) late Wednesday published the final text of a Senate health care bill that would mandate federally subsidized abortion. The mandate appears on page 120 of the 2,074-page bill under the seemingly innocuous heading: ‘Assured Availability of Varied Coverage Through Exchanges.” Specifically, the provision requires that the secretary of Health and Human Services make certain that at least one health insurance plan offered in government-regulated insurance exchanges where people will be able to purchase health insurance using government subsidies must provide coverage of abortion. The secretary also must make certain that at least one plan available...

A 12-year-old girl is prohibited from bringing aspirin to California public schools without a note from her mother or father – but in many California districts she may sign herself out of classes, leave her junior-high campus without parental permission, secretly have an abortion and return to school before the end of the day – and her own family may be none the wiser. Parents and educators across the state have been in heated debate over school policies allowing children to be excused during class time without parental notification for "confidential medical services" such as abortions, birth control, and drug...

BALTIMORE (AP) -- Fallout continues from the spring controversy over the University of Notre Dame awarding an honorary degree to President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went behind closed doors at their fall meeting Wednesday to discuss, among other issues, what action they should take to increase oversight of the nation's more than 200 Roman Catholic colleges and universities. Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the bishops' conference, revealed this week that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing the issue. Its research included a look at what church law says...

The Church of Scientology faces the prospect of a police investigation in Australia after being accused of torture and embezzlement and of forcing employees to have abortions. Nick Xenophon, an independent senator, presented letters to the Australian Parliament from seven former Scientologists which he said showed that the secretive church was a front for physical violence, intimidation and blackmail. “I am deeply concerned about this organisation and the devastating impact it can have on its followers,” he told the Australian Senate in Canberra. He called for a Senate inquiry. The State Crime Command of New South Wales police yesterday confirmed...

Facial Placenta facial: The treatment involves an ordinary-smelling cosmetic cream with a rather special ingredient (File pic) Between pre-match rituals and nights on the town, footballers get up to some pretty weird stuff. But the latest revelation, from Arsenal striker Robin van Persie, has stupified even the most credulous of fans. The Dutch player, who is suffering from ruptured ankle ligaments, flew out to Belgrade yesterday to meet a Serbian housewife who will rub his leg with fluid from a horse's placenta. Mariana Kovacevic has apparently already treated two of Van Persie's former Dutch teammates, one of whom recovered in...

Woman's Lawsuit: She Yelled Stop, Practitioner Continued With Forced Abortion Flint, MI -- Alberto Hodari owns six abortion centers in Michigan and LifeNews.com has delivered multiple reports on how he has three of them up for sale. A new lawsuit from a woman who says he forced her to have an abortion could explain why Hodari is quickly moving to divest himself of his abortion business. http://www.lifenews.com/state4585.html

The US Senate could start debating its final healthcare reform bill as early as Tuesday, pitting Democrat against Democrat ... [snip] “This is a horrible dilemma,” said Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. “The Democrats have to pass something..." [snip] The House passed a bill including the “Stupak-Pitts” amendment, which not only prevents abortion coverage in the public health insurance option but also prohibits private health insurers that have any customers receiving federal subsidies from offering abortion coverage... ...pro-choice activists say it amounts to a de facto ban on abortion. “It would be a great...

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) pledged on Tuesday morning to defeat healthcare reform legislation if his abortion amendment is taken out, saying 10 to 20 anti-abortion-rights Democrats would vote against a bill with weaker language. "They’re not going to take it out," Stupak said on "Fox and Friends," referring to Senate Democrats. "If they do, healthcare will not move forward." Stupak's amendment prohibits any insurance plan on a potential healthcare exchange from accepting federal subsidies if it covers abortion. Pro-abortion-rights lawmakers say that language is too broad and would drastically reduce access to abortion. White House senior adviser David Axelrod said...

With Democrats still grappling with the fallout of an abortion-rights deal that allowed the House to pass its health care bill last weekend, a key Democrat is predicting that abortion-rights supporters will have the votes to keep new abortion restrictions out of the final bill. On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Rep. Diana DeGette, co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said opposition is growing to the House-approved amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. She said the Senate is seeking out compromise language that won’t go as far as the House -- and said President Obama’s team is “absolutely” helping press...

To mark their 23rd anniversary, the French pro-life group SOS Tout-Petits held their annual National Rosary for Life on Saturday, sparking heated protests from the country's pro-abortion activists. Catholics gathered to pray outside cathedrals and churches in at least 28 cities throughout France, as well as in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Philippines. In many of these cities, the peaceful event attracted large anti-Catholic counter-demonstrations. For example, at the St. André Cathedral in Bordeaux, police were called to the scene as a large crowd opposed the 150 people gathered to pray. The crowd carried pro-abortion signs and shouted "Caca Catholic," "Mary,...

Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday he plans to filibuster President Obama’s first judicial pick, Judge David F. Hamilton. Sessions told reporters in a briefing that he will vote “not to consider” the nomination. “I think I intend not to support going forward (with) Hamilton’s vote,” Sessions said, adding that each senator has to vote his own conscience. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has called for a cloture vote on the nomination Tuesday, which would force the Republican filibuster of Hamilton, whom Obama indicated is the kind of nominee he...

Once upon a time there was a frog that lived on the riverbank. Life was good. The frog was full and happy; he worked hard all day catching flies. His life was satisfying. One day a scorpion came up to the frog and told him of the wonders that wait for him on the other side of the river. At first the frog was skeptical, and a little afraid of the deadly scorpion, but then she began to whisper gently to the frog, “I have heard that on the other side there are bugs so fat and juicy they can...

Marxist Muslim Barack Hussein Obama will be confronted by Senate Dems who oppose his baby killing when the health care debates fires up soon.

Activists Mobilizing to Keep Abortion in Health Care, Pro-Lifers Worried Washington, DC -- Angry and upset that the House-approved health care bill contains the Stupak amendment to ban virtually all abortion funding, pro-abortion activists have mobilized for a protest day on December 2 at Congress that could see tens of thousands of people attend. That has pro-life advocates worried. The anger and energy appears to be on their side and the pro-life movement needs to get back in the saddle or a massive government-run health care bill funding 300,000 abortions a year will be reality. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5668.html

Because modern life is so marked by prosperity for the greater portion of the earth, we rarely grasp the full impact of our spiritual position as a people, nation, or global family. Tragedy and evil seem so removed simply because it does not dwell in our own homes, or does not seem to.The reality of evil is eerily similar to the reality of holiness. It is hidden in the clothes of daily life, so that its horror is disguised, and the evil that seeks entrance is casually allowed and even ignorantly embraced by those who would resist it if they...

SSMU Council voted 16 to 7 by secret ballot in favour of suspending Choose Life’s club status on Thursday. Two separate motions were put forth to change the club’s status. The first resolution called for the club’s status to be revoked. After being defeated 11 to 12, a motion to suspend followed. The students who put forth the two motions claimed that Choose Life had disseminated false health information and exposed students to graphic images associated with abortion and fetal life. Additionally, the students felt that past events hosted by the club had threatened safe space for students on campus,...

...In the past I have grown angry with Chris Matthews, who is a practicing Catholic, because he has failed to defend the fundamental human right to life. However, in this discussion he took the position that the Stupak amendment - named after the faithful Catholic Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak who co-authored the amendment in the House - would end up causing the defeat of the legislation because there would be no compromise possible over the issue of funding abortion. Interestingly, he compared the current situation to the period just preceding the Civil War in the United States. He drew the...

Contrary to a popular fallacy that science and religion are at odds with each other, it's quite the opposite. Science and religion are the best of friends. And like good friends, they complement each other and produce beautiful music together. Take the recent incident of the young woman in Bryan, Texas -- the director of the Planned Parenthood abortion mill down there -- who had a change of heart and quit her job when she saw, for the first time, an unborn child on an ultrasound screen. As Abby Johnson related her story to Bill O'Reilly, "....what I saw on...

Activists Sending Coat Hangers to Congress for Abortion Funding in Health Care Washington, DC -- Borrowing a page from the playbook of pro-abortion members of Congress who recently used the myth of illegal back alley abortions to oppose the Stupak amendment, grassroots pro-abortion activists are sending coat hangers to Congress to urge taxpayer funding of abortion in the health care bills. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5663.html

Planned Parenthood Sets December 2 Pro-Abortion Funding Lobbying Day Washington, DC -- Top pro-abortion groups are planning a national lobbying day for December 2nd that will see thousands of angry abortion activists filling the halls of the House and Senate asking lawmakers to force Americans to pay for abortions under the government-run health care bills. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5658.html

Obama Will Remove Abortion Funding Ban From Health Care Bill Washington, DC -- Top Obama advisor David Axelrod on Sunday confirmed what pro-life advocates already suspected would happen. He said President Barack Obama will work with congressional Democrats to remove the abortion funding ban the House approved in its version of the government-run health care bill. http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5659.html

Our world has changed immensely since the 1970s: computers no longer fill an entire room, we don’t play records with a needle, and we can watch a fetus that weighs less than a few paper clips as her heart beats while she sleeps inside her mother’s womb. The abortion debate has also changed since the seventies. The original argument was that a woman had the right to her own body. That the child growing within was not a child at all, but a mass of tissue, therefore she had a right to have it removed and no government had the...

CHICAGO — A disturbing video released exclusively to Fox News by the animal rights group Mercy for Animals (MFA) shows a string of alleged abuses at one of the nation's largest pig farms, including footage of employees picking up baby pigs and tossing them like footballs. ("In other news, 1.2 million abortions occured in 2008. And now a word from our sponser, Mr. Clean.")

WHEN IT comes to America’s most famous Catholic family, no true compass guides the Roman Catholic Church. (snip) With Patrick Kennedy, the cassocks are off. After Representative Kennedy of Rhode Island questioned why the church is vowing to fight any health care bill that does not explicitly ban the use of public money for abortions, Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence fired back. Tobin called Kennedy’s support of abortion rights “a deliberate and obstinate act of will’’ that was “unacceptable to the church and scandalous to many of our members.’’ In a radio interview, Tobin went on to say, “If...

The Left opposes the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion provisions in healthcare reform. So why doesn't it oppose the YWCA, United Methodist Church, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis for favoring abortion? Getting Nancy Pelosi to accept a health care bill that bans federal funds for abortion was the greatest victory scored by U.S. bishops in a generation. It also unleashed an unprecedented attempt to censor them. Their latest enemy is Geoffrey Stone writing in the Huffington Post. Stone finds it troubling that the bishops are so vocal. He yearns for a time when JFK was president, a time...

ANALYSIS - Abortion exposes divisions among U.S. DemocratsBy Ed Stoddard Sunday November 15, 2009 DALLAS (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's bid to overhaul America's healthcare system has exposed a split within his Democratic Party over abortion that threatens to undercut the party's gains in recent elections. Democrats have traditionally supported a women's right to terminate a pregnancy, with the liberal wing of the party fighting doggedly for decades against repeated Republican efforts to limit the procedure. But a rising chorus of moderates -- some of them elected in traditionally Republican districts during the Democratic sweeps of Congress in 2006 and...

Axelrod Signals Obama Will Try to Strip Abortion Language From Health Care Bill by FOXNews.com The amendment, authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., went beyond preventing the proposed government-run plan from covering abortion to restrict federal subsidies from going toward private plans that offer abortion coverage. David Axelrod says the amendment changes the "status quo," something the president cannot abide. White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod suggested Sunday that President Obama will intervene to make sure a controversial amendment restricting federal funding for abortion coverage is stripped from final health care reform legislation. In doing so, the president would be...

A video describing a first-trimester abortion -- produced by Priests for Life and published on YouTube -- has reached a milestone. The YouTube video has been viewed more than a million times. Spokeswoman Janet Morana tells OneNewsNow that Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life plays host as he describes in direct but delicate terms just exactly what happens during an abortion. Using a fetal model and actual tools of abortion, Pavone says "this instrument I have in my hands was actually used to kill babies in the way that I'm about to describe" -- adding that "this is the gruesome reality of...

Rachel Maddow accusing pro life Democrats of not being "man enough." [And I am sure she would know what being "man enough" is]:"They're not really man enough to make the argument that it ought to just be gone. They'd rather just chip away from it from women they think won't fight back or can't fight back because they don't have the resources. It's cowardly, but it's the way they've been doing it for a generation." See more highlights of Maddow's and Olbermann's kissy-faced (imagine that) pro death interview below. After that fantastic story of Planned Parenthood director , Abby Johnson,...

Here's more good and encouraging news from the episcopal front, this time coming from Spain, where the Catholic bishops there are girding for battle with the country's leftist, pro-abortion government. When Nancy and I were most recently in Spain, for two weeks in September, I spoke at length with as many Spaniards as I could about what they see happening in the Church over there. In addition to their general pessimism about how apathetic most Spanish Catholics tend to be about the Faith, they also seemed very heartened by the muscular efforts many Spanish bishops, priests, and laypeople have been...

A proposal to allow students in the San Juan Unified School District to be excused from school without parental consent for "confidential medical services" has stirred up a debate that's been playing out throughout the state. The Pacific Justice Institute – a conservative legal nonprofit – is expected to square off against Planned Parenthood and the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law on the question of whether students in grades seven to 12 can leave campus for medical services that generally include abortions, acquiring birth control and treatment for sexual assault, drug and mental health issues. Parents on both sides...

Legislation purporting to reform health care in the United States has passed the House of Representatives. However, it did so only after it was amended by way of the “Stupak/Pitts Amendment” which was forced to a floor vote by the heroic perseverance of the US Bishops and the hard work of faithful Catholics in the Democratic Party like Bart Stupak and faithful Catholics in the Republican Party like Chris Smith. My purpose in this article is not to discuss whether that legislation will ever make it through the Senate, how it may be amended in the process or whether the...

In late September, the abortionist at Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas, needed assistance, so he asked the center’s director Abby Johnson to hold the ultrasound probe during a dilation and evacuation abortion. Johnson watched as the 13-week-old unborn child attempted to avoid the probe. “I saw a full profile of the baby from head to foot,” she told me. Once the abortion procedure began, Johnson saw the child “crumple” under the pressure of the vacuum and then in an instant the child was gone. The reality of seeing the baby moving struck her as she stood in shock and dropped...

This week, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, told reporters the GOP offers a "back-of-the-hand treatment to women." Later she said two conservative female representatives only serve to further "repulse women." You see, Schultz said on MSNBC, Republicans "don't really get very many women when it comes to elections." The week before, in Virginia, the Republican gubernatorial candidate won women. And in blue New Jersey, the Republican lost women but won white women by 18 percentage points. Last year, John McCain won a majority of the white female vote. They sum to more than 25 million women. Democrats, so...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- To hear pro-abortion members of Congress tell the story last weekend, women will head to the back alleys to have abortions unless they can get taxpayer funding for their abortions. Those were the unfounded claims presented during the House debate on the Stupak amendment. Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, said during the debate, "This amendment takes us one step back to those dark days of back-alley abortions"Jane Harmon, another California Democrat, added, "I am old enough to remember the days of back alley abortions. Some women I know had them. I cannot bear the idea...

ROME, November 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - If an embryo is human, it is a person - this is the golden rule for bioethics if it wants to uphold the full dignity of the human person, said the secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on Tuesday. The "concept of person" and its application to all human beings at every stage of their development is the key to understanding the Catholic teachings on the life issues Archbishop Luis Ladaria told a conference in Rome.  Archbishop Ladaria was speaking to an audience of students at a...

Republican Party chairman Michael Steele told Republican National Committee staff to immediately put an end to providing RNC employees with insurance for elective abortions. After learning of the abortion coverage from a news report, late Thursday evening Steele issued a statement: "Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose. I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled." According to RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho, Steele then instructed staff to let their insurance carrier know that the RNC wished to opt out of the...

A chagrined GOP Chairman Michael Steele has told Republican National Committee staff to immediately stop providing RNC employees with insurance for elective abortions — an option that Republicans strongly oppose as Democrats try to pass a health care overhaul bill. "Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose," Steele said in a statement late Thursday after learning of the abortion coverage from a news report. "I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled." Steele instructed staff to inform the insurance carrier that...

...two Catholic candidates won elections this year to state-wide office without compromising their pro-life, pro-family principles. The world didn't end, and once they are in office, they won't conduct witch hunts against those who disagree with them on these issues - but they will use their office to promote these central values, which transcend any one religion or political party. Catholics aren't pro-life and pro-family, after all, only because the Church tells them to be so, but rather, they are encouraged to hold true to these commonsense principles because of the witness and encouragement of their Catholic faith. You read...